Monday, February 29, 2016

CPD Weekly

USC Center on Public Diplomacy<cpd@usc.edu>

Feb 29, 2016

More than two-thirds of people in the UK believe that aid to developing countries should increase, with nearly as many agreeing that overseas aid is an effective way to tackle irregular migration from poorer nations, according to a Europe-wide survey. Read More...

The importance of diaspora in Modi’s diplomacy is reflected in the Indian communities related programs since PM Modi had taken the charge of the nation on May 2014. The government launched year-long consultation program on diaspora related subjects. Read More...

Leading Chinese performing artists who included opera singers, acrobats, dancers and instrumentalists on Sunday entertained a mammoth crowd in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. [...] In his opening remarks, Liu said the music concert was part of a series of activities that have been lined up to promote Sino-Kenya cultural cooperation. Read More...

Feb 28, 2016

Twitter’s #PositionOfStrength, a women’s empowerment initiative launched on Friday across India to help female Internet users bridge the gender equality gap online, using online platforms to expand their reach and influence. It was previously run in Australia and India, but this is the first time the campaign arrives in Asia. Read More...

Over 600 high school and undergraduate students attended the Model United Nations (AUSMUN) conference at the American University of Sharjah last week. The three-day conference, now in its ninth year, allowed student delegates to simulate the various United Nations committees and develop a sound understanding of international relations and diplomacy. Read More...

The 21st Francophonie Festival is going to launch in more than 200 cities across China in March. A variety of cultural events featuring French music, films, literature, sports, gastronomy and art will show the French language and culture. Read More...

U.S. social media companies are taking steps to curb support for terrorist causes on their websites. [...] In response, the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) released a new propaganda video which threatens Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.Read More...

French Minister of Urban Affairs, Youth and Sport Patrick Kanner, visited Seoul in mid-February to bolster cooperation for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games in Korea. Kanner, who was accompanied by a delegation of French companies [...] met Korean athletes and sports institutions in tennis, taekwondo and mountain climbing during a reception at the French Embassy in Seoul on Feb. 19. Read More...

The 2016 Pan-African Executive Summit - one of Africa’s most ‘unique and high which draws Business leaders from 35 countries across Africa and all around the globe is set to convene in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 15-16. Read More...

Feb 27, 2016

In 2014, Vilvoorde launched a project to counter the radicalization of young men and boys. Since then, the number of departures to Syria has dropped to zero. Boudaati said people involved in the project were trying to help young people find work and meaning at home in Belgium, as well as to understand the true word of the Quran, rather than Salafist interpretations. Read More...

The Estonian government has allocated EUR 105,000 for the project titled 'Protection of Crimean Tatar rights through public diplomacy', according to Oliver Loode, Vice Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in an interview. Read More...

Sometime in March last year Kenya’s diplomatic corps, attending the 17th Biennial Ambassadors and High Commissioners’ conference in Mombasa, bemoaned negative press reports and said this was frustrating their diplomatic initiatives in missions. The envoys noted that the local media’s fascination with “negative” narratives of insecurity, crime and corruption painted a bad image of the country abroad. Read More...

For the second year in a row, #OscarsSoWhite has dragged America’s diversity problem back into the global spotlight. [...] Yet the recent report by USC’s Annenberg School found that not much has changed—only seven percent of films in the past year had casts that accurately reflected the nation’s actual demographics. Read More...

Xi Jinping is the gift that keeps on giving.[...] This past week, the government released two policies (or re-released depending on your perspective): first, no foreign entity can independently publish anything online in China, and second, all the work of the Party’s media must protect and act on behalf of the Party. Read More...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards its Oscars on Sunday, and one of the nominees in the category of Best Documentary Feature is “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom,” a chronicle of the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv. Read More...

Feb 26, 2016

Boy band EXO and actor Yoo Ah-in were ranked as the most influential celebrities in Korea according to the annual ranking of the country’s version of business magazine, Forbes. [...] The list, titled Korea 2016 Power Celebrity 40, ranked celebrities based on sales, media exposure, broadcasting activities and professionalism. Read More...

The Amnesty International report reflects current systemic problems in the United States and deterioration in the human rights situation in Turkey, Russian Foreign Ministry Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law Konstantin Dolgov told TASS on Friday, commenting on the organization’s report. Read More...

Beijing's Capital Museum is expanding its exchanges with other countries as part of the city's renewed focus on building a national cultural centre. [...] In the two years since President Xi Jinping visited the museum and decreed that preservation of China's cultural industry should be one of Beijing's key roles, the museum has been working to set an example for the city's arts institutions. Read More...

Bolshoi Theater is playing the role of a “cultural ambassador” of Russia to the United States, promoting friendly relations between the two countries under the conditions of sanctions, Bolshoi’s Press Secretary Katerina Novikova told Sputnik. Read More...

"Los Angeles is a world-leader in creativity and innovation, and LA 2024 will put California's unparalleled tech and innovation capability at the service of the Olympic Movement.," said LA 2024 Chairman Casey Wasserman. Read More...

China’s diplomacy has truly gone global. Over the past forty years China has traveled a path from a nation isolated from the international community to one integrated into it. Today, Beijing enjoys diplomatic relations with 175 countries, is a member of more than 150 international organizations and is party to more than three hundred multilateral treaties. Read More...

Feb 25, 2016

The event was organized by an Institute of Cross-border cooperation and integration together with “Znaniye” Society and Gorchakov Foundation. More than 200 experts from 20 regions of Russia and 15 countries took part in Forum’s work. [...] According to their speech, Belgorod Region is one of the most progressive regions in applying of innovational methods of public diplomacy in near-border cooperation. Read More...

Thinc Design is in the hole $1 million, after the State Department failed to raise enough private money to fund the display — and its owner wants John Kerry to help pay him back, [...] Behind the scenes, many in the State Department blame Congress for putting the secretary in this awkward position of having to rely on outside funding and inexperienced operators to mount a major public diplomacy initiative. Read More...

To tell a good story should not be a risk. To paint on canvas or shoot a picture should not land you in jail. A tweet, a blog, a film — non should cost you your life. Look around the world, though, and worry. Storytellers are in jail, exiled or dead. [...] The full spectrum of art and culture is under duress in many countries because words and images are powerful and when there is distress, repression follows. Read More...

The North Korean women’s soccer team arrived in Japan on Thursday for Olympic qualifying matches in what Tokyo called “an exception” to its entry ban imposed over Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear weapons test and a rocket launch. Read More...

John E. Reinhardt, who in 1971 became the first black U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and in 1977 the first career diplomat to lead the U.S. Information Agency, died Feb. 18 at a retirement community in Silver Spring, Md. He was 95. [...] Mr. Reinhardt led a transition for the organization, which had been renamed the International Communication Agency and included Voice of America broadcasts in addition to public-diplomacy outreach programs. Read More...

Feb 24, 2016

Google’s new chief executive [...] Sundar Pichai makes his first trip as CEO to the European Union capital Thursday for the high-stakes visit with the competition commissioner who wields scepter-like power over the company’s future on the Continent. Read More...

Romanian ambassador to Baku Daniel Cristian Ciobanu took part in a two-day meeting dedicated to NATO public diplomacy activities in partner countries on February 23-24. [...] Ambassador Ciobanu participated in the event within the mandate Romanian diplomatic mission is fulfilling as NATO Contact Point Embassy in Azerbaijan for the 4th time in a row. Read More...

A recent Brookings Institution survey presented at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. indicated a growing American partisanship toward Israel and the Middle East. Read More...

Stanford University will be a partner and will serve as the venue for the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit with over 1,000 global delegates and hosted by President Barack Obama, the U.S. State Department and the White House announced today. Read More...

Pakistan's literary scene is seeing a spirited revival, with packed festivals attracting tens of thousands in a rock concert-like atmosphere that defies security threats in a growing cultural renaissance. Events such as the raucous Lahore Literary Festival [...] are reclaiming the “cultural space” that has shrunk significantly in the conservative Muslim nation in recent years amid a raging Islamist insurgency. Read More...

Irfan Durmić sees the metro-east through the eyes of a visitor, but also of someone who truly feels at home. [...] At age 16, he would be a sophomore in his home country, but with his transfer credits, American schools place him as a junior. That means he will probably still be a junior when he gets home, but he’s okay with that because he is having so much fun learning about America.Read More...

Feb 23, 2016

The Fulbright program […] is widely seen as a prime opportunity to add international experience to one’s résumé. Despite the bureau’s increased efforts to diversify the pool of grantees in recent years, though, the program also has a reputation of being overwhelmingly white. […] the State Department has been successful in increasing the participation of black people and other underrepresented minorities [...] Read More...

The Angkor Panorama Museum, which opened its doors in December, is just the latest international project to be completed by Pyongyang's Mansudae Art Studio - one of the largest art production centres in the world. […] In recent years Mansudae has started taking its gargantuan socialist-style monuments abroad. Read More...

Social media does more than share information about Syrian refugees; it offers ways you can help them. Here are five ways that highlight how social media supported Syrian refugees in the past year. Read More...

The Obama administration plans to use an additional $200 million to expand its fight against malaria, expanding services to 70 million more people in Africa and accelerating a global effort to eradicate the disease. Read More...

Xi [Jinping] became the top leader in late 2012, the new policy removes any doubt that in the view of the president and party chief, the media should be first and foremost a party mouthpiece. Mr. Xi wants to push the party’s message domestically — and internationally — across all media platforms, including advertising and entertainment […] Mr. Xi also wants to curb the presence of foreign media companies. Read More...

Music has the power to transcend borders and bring nations together, and what better way to foster cultural understanding than through the timeless elegance of opera. On February 8th, in collaboration with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Russian Embassy in Washington DC held a joint concert featuring aspiring artists from Russia and the United States.Read More...

Feb 22, 2016

Brussels hosted the third edition of NATO Public Diplomacy Forum [...] The event was organized by NATO Public Diplomacy Division in partnership with Center on Public Diplomacy of University of Southern California (United States of America). Read More...

Fuente Latina – a non-profit and non-governmental organization that intends to remove geographic and linguistic barriers for global Spanish language media covering stories about Israel and the Middle East – has recently open its first United States office in Miami. Read More...

The Ethiopian Football Federation and representatives of one of America's leading professional women's soccer teams, the Seattle Reign, met today in Addis Adaba and took the first steps in forging a strategic partnership aimed at forging international linkages and strengthening Ethiopian women's soccer. Read More...

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About Me

A Princeton PhD, was a US diplomat for over 20 years, mostly in Eastern Europe, and was promoted to the Senior Foreign Service in 1997. For the Open World Leadership Center, he speaks with
its delegates from Europe/Eurasia on the topic, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United" (http://johnbrownnotesandessays.blogspot.com/2017/03/notes-and-references-for-discussion-e.html). Affiliated with Georgetown University (http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/jhb7/) for over ten years, he shares ideas with students about public diplomacy.
The papers of his deceased father -- poet and diplomat John L. Brown -- are stored at Georgetown University Special Collections at the Lauinger Library. They are manuscript materials valuable to scholars interested in post-WWII U.S.-European cultural relations.
This blog is dedicated to him, Dr. John L. Brown, a remarkable linguist/humanist who wrote in the Foreign Service Journal (1964) -- years before "soft power" was ever coined -- that "The CAO [Cultural Affairs Officer] soon comes to realize that his job is really a form of love-making and that making love is never really successful unless both partners are participating."